Thay know less about me, and most of what they know
- My name (first/last)
- My home address
- My cellular telephone number
Anyone you do business with has these.
- My bank account info (AdSense EFT)
No ETF here. Again, this is not unusual info to give people. The other ad network I use has all this.
- The websites I own and operate (former Analytics data)
Google knows about one of my websites from Analytics and that and another through Webmaster tools. The site that uses analytics also uses Adsense so Google could gather that info anyway. No analytics or webmaster tools for the rest. They both have my name prominently on them so that is not secret. My ownership of all my domains publicly available if you do a whois search.
- All my email for 3 years (GMail)
- Who my 1,004 contacts are from GMail
The have some of my email from which they can harvest contacts. My main worry is that they may have backups of deleted sent mails because I use Google SMTP. Short of running a mail server myself, someone will have this. In any case most of my email goes to Britain where the recipients ISP is obliged to keep a record of the to/from addresses for the government.
- My credit card information (from Google Checkout)
They have one of my credit card numbers, and a history of one transaction
- My web history
- My ad-clicking history on GORG.com or sites running AdSens
- My interests and hobbies (based on sites I visit with a GORG product - Analytics, etc.)
- What YouTube videos I like to watch
Unless they are tracking by IP (so they see my logins come from the same IP as my searches) they do not have this.
- What my house looks like (Google Maps Street View)
- What vehicles are in my driveway (Google Maps Street View)
No street view here. In any case is what your house looks like from the outside private?
Now go through that list and see how much of the the government can know/ easily access (especially if you live in the EU). Add income (from tax forms) ownership of property, employment history, and possibly other assets, phone numbers and what phone calls you make or receive (varies from country to country, definitely recorded in the EU), info from social networking websites (I know my government monitors FB and Twitter), possibly some mobile phone location info, where your kids go to school, what car you own, when you bought it, etc., when you have left and entered the country, spending patterns and location info (from bank records)....
There is no opt out, and they can easily gather more. Who are you more frightened of?
